Multi-billion rand infrastructure to improve Eastern Cape

On Tuesday, November 28, the Eastern Cape Premier, Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane, and the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, attended a SANRAL stakeholder engagement session in the Alfred Nzo district. Where they introduced contractors to build road infrastructure in Matatiele and the Mtentu Bridge project in Mbizana. SANRAL has made a R1 billion investment in these two projects.

The Mtentu Bridge is being restored after being halted in 2019 by disgruntled residents who claimed that jobs were being sold.

According to the Minister of Transport, the Premier’s Office wrote to him requesting that the Mtentu Bridge be named after struggle activist Khumani Anderson Ganyile. Following the death of this struggle icon, who was arrested and detained without charge by apartheid police during the Ingquza Hill Massacre in Lusikiski in 1960.

“Premier, I have taken up your request and mandated that the Department of Transport working alongside SANRAL, and the Department of Arts and Culture’s naming committee follow the necessary protocols to ensure that this request from the Province of Legends indeed comes to fruition,” said Mbalula.

“It prides me that we are gathered here this afternoon, having traversed a long journey to the reinstating of a contractor onto this site.

“It is a day that marks the commencement of great economic opportunities within this region, both directly and indirectly linked to the bridge construction,” concluded Mbalula.

The Eastern Cape Premier described the region as the poorest in the country and expressed gratitude for having such a large project in the region.

“We are quite pleased; these are the kinds of partnerships we have been advocating as the provincial government, and we are seeing where we are going.

“We are working very hard to ensure that we leave a positive impact on the lives of the people in these areas,” Mabuyane said.

According to Mabuyane, the projects’ launch is a game changer for the province’s industrial hub’s economic development.

“The job opportunities that will be created here will benefit everyone. But we want job opportunities that will last, such as shopping malls and other things that can be done, so that we can find investors and bring them here,” he said.

Mabuyane stated that the region produces a lot of maize, which is then transported to the Durban port for export. The provincial government, in collaboration with the national government, assists with the majority of the maize grown in this region.

According to the premier, job opportunities will be available during maize agroprocessing due to the infrastructure built that will connect to the Durban port.